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DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



HOUSE OF CONVOCATION OF HOBART FREE COLLEGE : g 



COMMENCEMENT DAY/ JULY 15, 1852 



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BY JOHN M. WHIXINCt, M. A 



MODEM REFORMS, AND THE DUTY OF THE INSTRUCTED 



TOWARDS THEM, 



AN ADDRESS 
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HOUSE OF CONVOCATION 



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HOBABT FREE COLLEGE, AT GENEVA, 

COMMENCEMENT DAY, 

JULY 15, 1852, 



BY JOHN N. WHITING, Id . A., 

A Member of the House. 



Published under a Resolution of the House 

GENEVA, N. Y.: 

S. H. PAEKBE, PRINTER 

1852. 




ADDRESS. 



Of the two classes who are invested with academical 
honors upon festivals like the present — those who confine 
themselves to Scholastic pursuits, and those whose after 
life is engrossed by professional or commercial care — no 
distinctive fact is more prominent, than the view which 
each takes of the practical and progressive elements of so* 
ciety. These classes respectively underrate and over ex- 
alt man's every day life, and labor, and philosophy. The 
first class see too short an aim, too illogical or unphilo- 
sophical a theory, too much unprofitable labor, too many 
erring instincts, too much wilful self-deception, or fraud 
upon others, to satisfy the calm composure, the perfection 
of system and of analysis, the permanence and unity of 
design, which to their minds is the only wisdom and the 
only dignity ; while the second view abstract truth, the 
theories of the closet, and the serene tranquility with which 
the scholar withstands the shock and convulsion, the heat 
and warfare of oat door struggle and progress, as the 
dreams of a man not half awake to their importance, or 
the complacency ol a man whose reason has smothered his 
sensibility, or the indolence of a man who has stifled all 
real emotion until the throb with which all humanity should 
vibrate, falls upon his heart as upon a stone. To my vis- 
ion this wall of separation is getting to be higher and 
stronger. The man of labor is more believing day by day 
in an education which shall be altogether what he calls 
practical; and the man of thought is more in doubt day by day 



as to the power in right education to adapt itself to the 
precocious energy, the resistless current of sheer mechan- 
anism and utilitarianism to which all human life seems 
tending. So the one is pressing with sacriligious tread on 
to the venerable systems, the accuracy and precision of 
what has heretofore been considered true scholarship, and 
the other is withdrawing more and more from an alliance 
which can only pollute the spotless robe of the true seeker 
after truth; and the very foundation stones of society are 
upheaved by the merest mountebanks in science and gov- 
ernment, while the men who have been taught, view what 
they believe to be a ruthless and irreclaimable subversion 
of the soundest principles, not perhaps with indifference, 
but without an outcry. They will neither direct the storm 
nor ride upon it, nor breast it ; they are content to bend 
before it, with a narrow chance after it has passed to stand 
upright in its path of destruction. 

That there is a widely extended disposition for reform 
and progress in the community, no man who is observant 
of the course of events, or the impression which his own 
mind receives from such events, can fail to perceive. He 
may doubt their genuineness or their efficacy, but of the 
fact itself, he cannot fail to be cognizant. With some who 
are the chief agents in these progressive changes, this spir- 
it takes a lofty tone of patriotism and of philanthropy, and 
is manifested in schemes of arresting disease and want 
and vice, and in developing a higher moral culture, or a 
more general teaching. With others it is a more theoret- 
ical and speculative endeavor, and is shadowed in the sin- 
cere and profound utterance of notions teeming with all the 
wealth and variety which genius, learning and taste can 
impart, and commending its aims by the rarest virtues and 
accomplishments ; or it is shown in endeavor purely me- 



chanical, and alt the range of science so far as it can ap- 
ply to useful art, is sought to be brought home to the re- 
lief of all difficulty and danger, of all delays and obstacles. 
Still another and more common manifestation of this rest- 
less spirit is manifested in the individual and associated 
and declamatory effort to relieve society and government 
of all their chief regulations and forms. Such are devices 
to abolish or to modify the difrierent forms of belief, and 
all reasons for doubt, all the functional relations of society, 
involving the personal and commercial and political rela- 
tions; involving too a simplification of the law, and of the 
different civil institutions which obtain in the community, 
so that the various moral duties and individual relations 
of its members shall be established and regulated by the 
statute book, or be subject to the public supervision and 
control. Every department of society, every shade of be- 
lief, every manufacturing or commercial interest, every 
school of science and of philosophy has its reformers. 
Some indeed with well earned claims to that high distinc- 
tion, when properly bestowed — but the vast majority, self 
constituted, without a single requisite of such a character, 
unless it be the simple desire for change. Now this rest- 
less working will have its momentous fads as a sure con- 
sequence. It has them now. Vast destinies hang upon 
the persevering industry in changing established facts, which 
teems and hums through every thoroughfare and every 
bye-lane of existence, which is crawling over the churches, 
is undermining and upheaving the law, is defiling every sa- 
.cred relationship, is crouching at the tire-side and making 
an Inn of every home — industry which wants direction 
and mastership, thought which wants a moral purpose, 
moral energy which wants intelligence, theories whicl^ 
want reflection and experience. 



Among those who have assumed the profession of refor- 
mers, there would seem to be but few who possess the 
unearthly mould, the conquest of self, which is associated 
as well by historical facts, as by a sense of natural fitness 
with such a distinguished calling. The remainder form a 
class by themselves. Their stock in trade is simple. They 
are apt to declaim well over existing evils, and to affect a 
firm faith in their plan for their abolition. They usually 
entertain an acute sense of .the shallowness of all the op- 
posing teaching of history. Their peculiar reform is in- 
vested with all the attributes of goodness and truth, with 
the lofty and formal homage, which men lacking an inti- 
mate association with an object, generally use. Their 
particular reform is commonly made the test by which 
the motive and effect of all human action is judged. They 
do not need reflection nor experience ; because in relation 
to this Reform there has been no past. It is sufficient to 
condemn any contrary teaching of history, that its facts 
were not shaped by this reform. Without it, they can 
scarcely be called facts ; they had no real origin, no appro- 
priate effect. It is a sufficient blessing to the Present, 
that their reformatory spirit is, shining in its midst. 

So too they are apt to regard all facts and knowledge 
as unreliable, if disconnected from or disputing their exper- 
iment, and their system is thus cut off from whatever aid 
or confirmation it might derive from the belief or the doubts 
of others. 

Although the modern reformer often claims the loftiest 
.courage, which seems justified by his zeal, yet it is notice- 
able that he usually shrinks from a substitution of any 
definite plan, for the evils which he seeks to remove. What 
is to follow either as to its manner of coming, or its iden- 
tity when it is come, must be left to the exigency or the 



inspiration of the moment, or to arrange itself under the 
light and guidance of his principles. 

Another objection is found, to most modern reformers, 
in their sources of belief; which do not seem to allow any 
speedy arrival at truth. They generally select a single 
class of cases in their experience as the foundation of their 
theory. So doing, they need not be, and are not likely to 
be, astonished at their conclusions. It might surprise a 
man who deems it discreet or honest to examine all the 
facts and all the experience, of himself and of others, be- 
fore adopting his belief. But to the majority of modern 
agitators this is neither philosophical nor successful. Their 
faith and its results are best made up by the steady con- 
templation of facts, or of one fact, from a single point of 
view, with a careful disregard of all light or effect, except 
as thus received. 

I propose briefly to notice the actual fruits of this spirit 
of change, thus manifested upon many of the public and 
individual relations of the country ; and without having 
the time or the willingness fully to consider them, or to 
commend or to reject them, proceed to remark upon what 
seems to be the obvious policy of the educated and think- 
ing class towards them as impending and interesting facts. 

One of the leading projects now most urgently pressed 
for the public approval, is the necessity for a change in 
the rights and position of women. This movement had 
an intelligent and rightful origin. Intellectual and moral 
advancement had exposed serious wrongs in woman's po- 
sition and relations, and had produced a corresponding 
aptitude in her for increased responsibilities. The exigen- 
cies which had cribbed the earlier jurisprudence as it re- 
lated to the rights of women, had become, with increase 
of knowledge, the expansion and adjustment of the law ? 



and the high advancement which females had made in 
character and capacity, almost rude, and grossly inade- 
quate to her real wants and influence. So the Courts, in 
their equitable capacity, gradually framed rules shielding 
to a great extent the property, conjugal rights, and indi- 
viduality of women. Then statutes were passed for the 
same benign purpose until every woman, upon due pre- 
caution, might enjo}^ eminent privilege and security. 

But these just and obvious reforms are now being dis- 
torted and huiried to consequences most alarming to 
those accustomed and willing to investigate the real bond 
of union in society, the real foundation of sound morals and 
right social influences. A chief error in this regard, is the 
substitution of a thoroughly public instruction, a mere inteU 
lectual training, a promiscuous intercourse and acquain- 
tanceship, the chance morality which the leisure, or the 
inclination of the public instructor may suggest, and the 
incitements to a public career, for the protection and gui- 
dance, and the numberless moral influences of a Home. 
The discreet government and subordination which alwa}^s 
pervades the just family relation, which more than any 
thing else forms character, establishes virtue, and a prop- 
er appreciation of one' sown position and the rights of oth- 
ers, which is the root of all reverence and loyalty, is to be 
superceded, and men and women are to grow up as best 
they may, bo that when they are up, the Senate house and 
the Courts, the surgeon's table and the itinerant lecturer's 
room, the stump, and the public service, shall be the common 
receptacle of all. In this scheme, the men of thought are the 
last to awaken to its noxious influence, while the mounte- 
bank and adventurer, with nothing to lose, and allured 
by the chance of a brief notoriety and a hazardous agita- 
tion, are allowed to crawl into the legistative halls and 



places of trust, and induce the weakening or subversion 
of the most cherished principles and relations. Now these 
results may not now be inevitable, but may they not be- 
come so ? The rights of women and their appropriate in- 
fluence, may not be fully developed. But in the effort to- 
wards development, is not the home influence and teach- 
ing becoming less ? Is not a strange and monstrous delu- 
sion fast growing over the public mind as to the right moral 
sphere of females ? Every true woman has in shame and 
sorrow, acknowledged to her own conscience, that the 
high priest of the human heart, which has heretofore been 
clothed in flowing robes, has lowered her lofty calling in 
the flaunting of a savage attire, and the frantic scoldings 
of the Forum and the Tribune. The reverence and subor- 
dination, so necessary in life's discipline, are becoming, as 
principles of education, fossil remains, rarely found and 
negligently preserved. 

Another great change has already come over the public sen- 
timent in respect to the relation of debtor and creditor. This 
too had its origin in the harshness of the laws regulating the 
enforcement of claims. With a proper appreciation of the 
nature and obligation of these claims when proceeding 
from mere contracts, came a more humane legislation, com- 
mencing with the abolition of imprisonment for debt, and 
followed by a relaxation, almost yearly, of the legal obli- 
gations of the debtor. With this came also a greater change 
in opinion, and a warm, and to a degree, a false sympathy 
has been nurtured for those who are indebted, until the 
whole policy of action in the community, and even of leg- 
islation itself, has been in contravention at once of the 
means of enforcing a debt, and its moral obligation. As 
a simple proposition, a moralist, or any thinking man, 
would start at this. The acknowledgment, and rigid sus- 



10 

tenance of an obligation, seems to lie at the root of all pri- 
vate or public morality ; and it may well be a matter of 
grave discussion, whether such facts do not indicate a 
policy of action at once loose and inconsiderate, and most 
pernicious in its consequences. Here again, the man of 
thought has withheld the obvious philosophical deduction 
from this fact, while the men of mere action and sympathy 
could not comprehend its tendency and influence, to say 
nothing of the declamation of the demagogue or the insid- 
ious pleading of the professional debtor. As a natural 
consequence of the facts just detailed, is the growing incli- 
nation for ike absolute repudiation of contracts. This most 
pestilent spirit has gotten vitality and shape, more from a 
toleration of its first advances, than from any deep rooted 
sympathy, or real belief in its principles. I do not regard 
the indignities and riots, and infamous pretensions of the 
mere renowned repudiators of contracts, as presenting the 
real ground of alarm. Such outbreaks often accompany 
popular excitement ; but what seems most desperate and 
serious in view of their organization, is the fact that their 
principle of action is tolerated for a moment as a matter of 
discussion and treaty, to be calmly surveyed, and deliber- 
ately reflected on, as to its political and party aspects. It 
is the supineness and indifference, the absolute ignoring of 
this most vital treason, which is the shameful and startling 
fact, and which is pressed home upon us at every election 
with humiliating significance. It elects Governors and 
Judges, and we all so far lack courage and patriotism, as 
to appeal to it to do so. The leading thought in the state 
has withheld its argument and reprobation and entreaty, 
until the Anti-rent principles are part of the party stock in 
trade, and its party an estate in the commonwealth. 

Another deeply interesting so-called Reform, to a class 



11 

in the community, is the change in the practice and pro- 
ceedings in our Courts. While I believe this to be in part 
well founded and well intended, I cannot forbear referring to 
it as significant of the way in which changes are wrought in 
these latter years. There was no attempt here to conform the 
splendid system of pleading and practice, which had. been 
wrought out in the acutest love for justice, by some of the 
master minds of the world, to the later wants of the -peo- 
ple ; there was no attempt to make the change gradual, 
but it was sweeping, instantaneous, and the whole litiga- 
tion of the country with its boundless interests was to be 
marshalled under a new and untried discipline. What 
was most diverting, to those who were in a position to be 
amused, was the fact, that while the new system was of 
the greatest professed liberality, it was in fact in some 
points more stringent and arbitrary than the old ; and the 
courts were invested with new powers ; among others, 
with an enlarged " discretion." Now it is not easy to 
peceive wherein Judicial discretion is better than any oth- 
er. The only historical record we have of a government 
of judges, presents the fact that the people became so over 
burdened, that they petitioned for and obtained an abso- 
lute monarchy. We have no record, that under the op- 
pressing tyranny which followed, they ever sought to re- 
store their former government. The better conviction 
among the experienced and reflecting is, that rights and 
liberty are better secured, and more easily determined, 
where the administration of jurisprudence is regulated by 
fixed rules. 

There is still another of the same kind of Reform, as it. 
is called, and one which has attracted a large share of the 
public thought, although great inaccuracy now exists in re- 
spect to it. I mean the responsibility of the public press for 



12 

what it may utter. Upon no point is the question of ab- 
stract right more nicely presented. How far the public 
press has a right to expose or to comment upon a fact per- 
sonal to an individual ; when the truth is to be uttered, 
and when suppressed, and how far a publisher ought to 
be punishable for a falsehood published ; and whether the 
public can have any interest, or ought to have any control 
over a transaction relating to an individual; are all pure- 
ly abstract in their nature and elucidation, yet having most 
interesting practical effects hanging upon them. Perhaps 
in an assembly like this, great unanimity of opinion may 
exist upon this subject ; yet there are advocates for the 
extremest license in the press, and legislatures are beseig- 
ed by those whose love of notoriety or more vicious impul- 
ses incite them to the effort, of extending such license, and 
it seems almost inviolable that the public sentiment and 
even the law will give way before the pressure, unless 
those who know what constitutes a right, and who appre- 
ciate its inviolability and delicate chastity, shall interfere 
and enlighten and control those whose education or chan- 
ces will not permit their reflection upon the subject. 

The revival in these latter days of the notion, that an 
individual may neglect obedience to, or oppose a legisla- 
tive act which does not accord with his private judgement, 
although it involves no new principle to those familiar with 
ecclesiastical history, is a doctrine which latterly is regard- 
ed by many as a recent discovery, and is hailed as a lead- 
ing Reform. Amidst the clamor which this discussion has 
created, I feel great doubt as to the benefit of its renewal 
here. I have thought it proper in connection with my 
subject, to say that, while the enlightened opinion in the 
community seems to be that obedience to an enactment 
solemnly and deliberately passed, is the unavoidable duty 



13 

of every citizen, especially where the law making power 
has jurisdiction over the subject of the law, yet I cannot but 
regret that the exposition of the principle has not been 
more accurately and carefully made, and that there has 
not been more effort to reduce the principle to the common 
apprehension, and to commend it by such exposition, and 
such relief from partizanship and demagogueism, as would 
ensure its acceptance in the popular mind. It is true that 
many of the statesmen of the country have invested this 
principle with the loftiest motives of patriotism, and de- 
fended it with vivid eloquence and zeal, but it has been 
presented under an odious association, to which it was 
made subordinate ; while the great fact involved, en- 
tering so inestimably into the very nature and compact of 
citizenship, has not been pressed home as a cardinal mor- 
al precept, unswerving and eternal. Those who have no 
personal interest in enforcing the opposite of this principle, 
the scholar, the man of reflection and experience, are em- 
inently fitted to induce an acquiescence for it in the popu- 
lar symyathies and belief. Such an introduction of prin- 
ciple, by men rightly learned and of willing influence, is 
to me a most interesting bond of union, full of promise to 
the maintenance of a sound faith, and a corresponding ac- 
tion throughout the state, tending to elevate the common 
notions and philosophy, and to give them an object and an 
effect. 

But I am prolonging these remarks more than I had 
hoped. I am obliged to omit any consideration of the pre- 
vailing opinions respecting the immunities and authority 
of a majority among the people. The individualizing, the 
awe and worship, of what is called public opinion, and 
more particularly of the tendency which is now obtaining 
towards a principle of association for all purposes, and its 



14 

likelihood to impair, or to supercede the sense of personal 
responsibility, the self-erected and defended and sacredly 
private morality of the individual. One of the most im- 
pressive and curious topics of investigation within my 
knowledge, is the final issue and moral effect of the wide 
maintenance of this principle of association. It is entirely 
new, and as yet free from being satisfactorily tested. It 
cannot long remain so. I am obliged to omit also, any re- 
marks upon what is to be apprehended from the various 
specifics and useful inventions, by which the common pro. 
cesses of teaching are tobe abbreviated, and learning to be- 
come the instinct and inheritance of every man. 

Of the important fact, that every true patriot and every 
well instructed man should be a Reformer, in the enlarged 
and earnest meaning of the term, and the gross deficiency 
of understanding and of motive which exists in those whose 
principles and taste seem to forbid their giving encourage- 
ment or direction to the many healthful changes, which are 
being pressed upon the public mind, I should grieve to be 
silent. I believe that thera must be, as an inevitable des- 
tiny, great changes in all the callings of labor ; in much of 
the social and even of the moral and religious philosophy 
by which men act and feel. It indicates a miserable use 
both of the facts and the deductions of history, a coldness 
of sensibility, a harshness of faith, and an infirm moral pur- 
pose, to rest in contentment with present, attainments and 
to dread or condemn proposed changes, either from ex- 
cessive veneration for old systems, or from jealousy of ex- 
tending privilege and advancement to a larger class. No '• 
the purer, safer doctrine is, to foster all true reforms, and 
to seek the elevation and freedom of all men every where. 
But in this progress, let men of education and experience 
be the leaders and the guides, and not entrust it to the 



15 

blind and the halt, nor any one of those whose only asso- 
ciation would seem to have been with bedlam. 

These several Reforms, adverted to to-day, with their 
causes and phenomena, are so far as I can see, deeply 
problematical, and weighing for a final venture vast des- 
tinies for evil or good, for widely ranging and devastating 
sequences ; or for the highest progress, advancement, re- 
lief and elevation. 

Let them come when they will, their shock and conflict 
must be borne by men and women of right education, of 
earnest faith, of self-knowledge and knowledge of their 
kind ; no vacant theorist, no musty student, nor cold for- 
malist, nor refined speculator, nor vapid demagogue, nor 
scheming adventurer ; no courtiers nor clowns, will be the 
reliance or the hope of humanity then. It is your genuine 
man, strong in the purpose of hearty impulses, a just be- 
lief, a mind attuned to harmonize and respond to human 
joy and sorrow, a self-conqueror— who will then be called 
of all the people, whose might only can prevail. 

And, so briefly to sum the matter, I would have the 
men of thought and of teaching, become also men of labor, 
in sympathy, in acquisition, in active energy and influence 
over the interests and impulses, the heaving, restless tu- 
mult of daily life and struggle. 

Worshippers of truth, and denizens of its high domains, 
let them come out among the mass, contending with shams 
and formulas, just bursting, many of them, through the in- 
crustation of ages of wrong and error, of pride, avarice and 
delusion. 

Apostles of freedom ! armed with its sacred rights, let 
them commend its spirit and teaching, by the. exercise of 
truth, justice and enlightenment, and illumine unto all a 
clear perception of the dignity, usefulness and appropri- 



16 



ateness of true labor, directed by an upright thought ; and 
the beneficence and splendor, the undying glory and sa- 
credness of a careful thought, directed to the duties and 
the objects of inevitable and eternal labor. 

It is appropriate to this subject, and accords with my 
own emotions, to refer with exultation and hope to the 
change of position which the aid of a munificent corpora- 
tion has enabled our alma mater to take. Not one of us 
will question either the genuineness or the practical use of 
this Reform. It is, we believe, the beginning of a system 
of education which shall go on until every man may be in- 
structed it not learned, and full mental and moral devel- 
opment shall be free, and pure as the air and the sunlight. 
Upon no academical association could this high precedence 
be more appropriately bestowed. It is due to the just 
control, the accurate instruction, and the principles of hon- 
or and of morality which have uniformly prevailed here, 
that in making the investigation of science and truth free 
to all, the light of the glorious principle taught should first 
go out from Geneva College. Geneva College, no more ! 
but however much we may wish to linger over the old 
name and its associations, we shall all invoke for the new 
organization the highest prosperity and widest usefulness. 



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